In Syria, the United Nations is warning that hundreds of men and boys may have gone missing after leaving rebel-held sections of Aleppo and crossing into government-held territory, amid the Syrian government’s ongoing air and ground offensive to retake the entire city of Aleppo. The offensive is seen as a major turning point in the war between anti-government rebels and the Syrian government, which began as a democratic popular uprising in 2011 and and has since descended into a devastating civil war. Tens of thousands of civilians have been fleeing rebel-held eastern Aleppo in recent days, as the Syrian government has seized control of at least 75 percent of the rebels’ territory. Meanwhile, today is the third anniversary of the kidnapping of prominent Syrian human rights lawyer and activist Razan Zaitouneh. She was abducted with three others on December 9, 2013, at the office of the Violations Documentation Center in Douma. She was a co-founder of the Local Coordination Committees and was targeted by both the government and by extremist groups for her activism. Before her abduction, she spoke many times on Democracy Now! about the 2011 popular democratic uprising in Syria and denounced the brutal crackdown by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against the revolution. This is Zaitouneh speaking in December 2011.

Razan Zaitouneh: “Since the schools have started for this year, we witness daily protests. It’s not organized, actually. They just—the students finish their schools and go daily after the school and protest. They got arrested, beaten, punished in every harsh way. And recently, what is remarkable, that in Aleppo universities more and more student protest is taking place daily, which is very important because, until this moment, Aleppo wasn’t that involved in the movement, in general.”

Amy Goodman: “How is Bashar al-Assad maintaining his power right now? And what about the lack of Western media in Syria being able to really show the pictures of what’s going on?”

Razan Zaitouneh: “Only by killing. There is no—I think not another regime [inaudible] all this violence against its own people, only to remain its power.”